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This study examines the influence of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in the budgetary process in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The mandate of this committee is to conduct pre-budget consultations every year to seek the opinion of the population on the content of the next provincial budget. Many have recommended increasing use of legislative committees to bring back relevance to parliamentary institutions in Canada. It is believed that legislative committees provide an environment that is less conducive to partisan confrontations and can help in building the policy expertise of parliamentarians. Using interviews with committee members and a survey among participants in pre-budget consultations, this was found to be the case. The main finding points to the potential of legislative committees in performing a representative function because they can put forward the views of the public as part of the budgetary process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For more than a decade the British Columbia Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services has conducted pre-budget consultations to gather the opinions of groups and individuals on the content of the upcoming provincial budget. Committee members travel to various communities across the province to hear witnesses during public hearings, and to receive submissions (written or video), responses to a survey (sent to every household in the province and available online), as well as letters and emails. At the end of the process, the Committee presents its recommendations to the Legislative Assembly. This article looks at lessons to be drawn from these consultations. It is based upon a survey of some 253 individuals who appeared before the Committee between September 15 and October 15, 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results of an empirical study that focused on identifying the key factors that influence the size of public revenues. Our analysis covers the 1967–2003 period and uses observations made in the ten Canadian provinces with respect to four specific revenue categories (total own-source revenues, personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, and consumption taxes). We test a number of hypotheses, including the influence of the ideology of the party in power, the presence of an electoral cycle, the impact of the demographic structure, the economic openness to foreign markets, and the presence of financial constraints. Our results indicate that the provincial governments have some flexibility when it comes to taxation. However, many constraints exist that can limit their ability to change taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]